I am one of those fortunate people who grew up in a good home that was fairly normal and functional. There was love, my mother was a stay-at-home mom, and my dad worked long hours. We did not have a lot, but we were well cared for. It was not a home without its kinks, but it was a good home where there was humor and good times which overbalanced the problems that were present. I have many pleasant memories of my home. In spite of that, there were times when there were some real fireworks. My parents rarely fought, but I remember one time that my parents came home from a Saturday evening out with several friends. I can still see my mother coming in and slamming the door and my father walking in sheepishly after her. He had obviously said or done something that had really set her off, and to this day I don’t know what it was. But I remember the next morning how strange I felt when our family took our usual place toward the front of the church and my mother chose to sit in the back pew alone. There is nothing like having the whole church know that your parents are having a serious fight.
All marriages have their tense moments, and some have more than others. All homes have problems, some are relatively small and some are more serious. The serious problems are sometimes denied and therefore unresolved, and at other times the conflicts are an obvious and open wound. But in spite of how bad things might be, the good news of Jesus Christ is that we do not have to remain like we are. We can change personally and our marriage relationships can change as well. Even though they have been destructive, they can become redemptive. Jesus is in the business of changing lives and marriages.
As we consider how marriage can be redemptive, the first point we will consider is: It is to be a model of our relationship with Christ. Marriage is intended to be the closest thing on earth we know to God’s love for us. In the scripture we read in Ezekiel, and many other passages, God compares his relationship with us to the relationship of marriage. There is intense attraction and affection, courtship, tender caring, attention, protection, gifts, and strong commitment on the part of God toward his people. We have the same imagery intensified in the Old Testament book of Hosea.
In the New Testament, we have the same comparison where Christ’s love for the church, his people, is expressed in romantic terms and parallels the marriage relationship. Our marriage relationship is to reflect the love between Christ and the church — the same love, commitment, kindness and forgiveness. In the book of Ephesians we read: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church — for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:25-32).
This is a great responsibility and a great blessing. As we live together we model the sacrificial, servant love of Christ for each other, and the result is that we experience the same joyful and playful love that Christ has for his people. In other words, our relationship with our spouse is not something that is just between us. Our marriage is to be a living statement to the world of what Christ’s love for us is like — the intimacy, the joy, the commitment and love. This sanctifies the marriage relationship and makes it holy. It also makes it a lot of fun.
The second thing that we want to consider about how marriage can be redemptive is: It is where we learn to love and be loved. Not all of us know how to love and be loved the day of our marriage. We know how to be children, but we do not know how to be adults. We may have learned some real bad lessons from home that say love has to be earned or deserved, and that there are certain requirements that must be met. We may not know how forgiveness works. We have also learned some real bad lessons from the culture in which we live. Everyday we get the message that only beautiful people deserve love. We are bombarded with the message that sex has little to do with love or commitment. And then we have our own issues of selfishness and laziness. It is a wonder that any of us make it, but we learn with the help of our mate. The lessons aren’t always easy, and we may not be quick learners, but step by step and little by little, we begin to get it.
I think the wonderful thing about marriage is that we enter a relationship with another person where we are known at the deepest level and loved the most. That is how it should work. We live so closely together that we cannot hide our faults and imperfections. I have been surprised many times that my wife can love me when my weaknesses and imperfections have become painfully obvious. It is a nice surprise. Marriage is where we are surprised by love. Someone can know what a jerk we can be and still accept us and like us. It really is amazing. It is another way that marriage is like God’s love for us — love comes as an unexpected and undeserved surprise. While we were still sinners God loved us. While we were still jerks our spouse still loved us. That is grace lived out.
Marriage is where we learn to think about someone else and take their needs into consideration. C. S. Lewis said that he found it easier to pray for his wife than help with the dishes. I have used similar spiritual excuses to retreat from responsibilities. Love demands something of us. It means that you work at seeing Christ in your husband or wife. You serve them as though you were serving Christ. What this means is that you become vulnerable, because the more you show love to another person, the more you are leaving yourself open to potential hurt. But this is the kind of love that God has shown us.
You may remember the story of the prophet Hosea the prophet. God told him to do the unthinkable. He was to marry and give his love to a prostitute. She was repeatedly unfaithful to him, but each time he was told by God to bring her back home and love her. This strange request of God was to be a symbol to God’s people that he was going to give his love to them even if they were unfaithful to him. He would make himself vulnerable. They would trample his love over and over again, but he would still pursue them. God’s love involves risk. If we are not willing to risk we will never know love at its most profound level. We risk every time we speak and show our love, not knowing how it will be returned. We risk when we forgive, because we do not know whether we will be wronged again. We risk when we serve, because we do not know whether we will be taken advantage of. But all of this is a part of learning how to love.
The other part of love is allowing ourselves to be loved. It is hard to allow yourself to be loved, or truly believe that you are loved, when you don’t feel worthy of love. When you think that you are inadequate it is hard to receive love, even when it is being given to you freely. The truth is that none of us are worthy of love. But that is what makes love real. It comes even when we are not the best looking, most sophisticated, wealthiest, successful people in the world. If love only came because we had achieved it or deserved it in some way then it would not be love in the truest sense. There is an element of grace in love. For the truth is that none of us can completely meet the needs of another human being. It ought to be obvious when every day we see on television the most beautiful, successful, wealthy and talented people in the world who cannot stay married — like J.Lo and Ben. Their relationships end almost before they begin. They are not suited for marriage because they love a mirage. They never stay long enough to learn how to love an imperfect person.
But when we learn how to love and experience love, we experience true joy. And this is the third point, that marriage becomes a redemptive relationship when we learn: It is intended to be a source of joy. What a good God we have who blesses us with the joy of marriage It is supposed to be fun. That is God’s design. What was the first miracle of Jesus? He turned water into wine for a wedding. Why did he do that? Well, obviously he did not want the family to be embarrassed when the wine ran out, but more than that he wanted the joy to flow. Someone said, “It took Jesus two seconds to turn the water into wine, and the church has spent 2000 years trying to turn the wine back into water.” Jesus wanted the marriage to begin with joy and to continue in joy.
I think it is unfortunate when married people have forgotten how to have fun. They get caught up in all the things that have to be done and lose their joy. They forget how to laugh and take things lightly. Life becomes too serious. If you are going to enjoy your marriage you have to have a sense of humor. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. You have to bring joy to the marriage instead of expecting the other person to make you happy.
Leadership magazine ran an article a few years ago that read: “The space shuttle Discovery was grounded recently — not by technical difficulties or lack of government funding, but by woodpeckers. Yellow-shafted flicker woodpeckers found the insulating foam on the shuttle’s external fuel tank irresistible material for pecking. The foam is critical to the shuttle’s performance. (And now we know just how critical ) Without it, ice forms on the tank when it’s filled with the super-cold fuel, ice that can break free during liftoff and damage the giant spacecraft. The shuttle was grounded until the damage was repaired. Marriages are frequently damaged not by big things — infidelity or abuse or abandonment — but by the little things. Criticism, lack of respect, and taking each other for granted peck away at the relationship and keep us from reaching the heights.”
What happens is that little things become big things and begin to rip away at the relationship as partners begin to pick at each other. They nurse their hurts and become paranoid about what the other means when they speak. They overreact and speak angry words that should never have been spoken.
Carl Windsor, in his book On This Day, tells this story: “Even the most devoted couple will experience a stormy bout once in a while. A grandmother, celebrating her golden wedding anniversary, once told the secret of her long and happy marriage. ‘On my wedding day, I decided to make a list of ten of my husband’s faults which, for the sake of our marriage, I would overlook,’ she said. A guest asked the woman what some of the faults she had chosen to overlook were. The grandmother replied, ‘To tell you the truth, my dear, I never did get around to listing them. But whenever my husband did something that made me hopping mad, I would say to myself, “Lucky for him that’s one of the ten ”’”
The Bible says, “People with good sense restrain their anger; they earn esteem by overlooking wrongs” (Proverbs 19:11, NLT). It is not only good sense, it is the road to joy. May the Lord bless your marriage with great joy.
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 21, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Redemptive Relationships: Marriage
Questions for September 21, 2003
1. What do we learn in marriage that we learn nowhere else?
2. Read Ephesians 5:25-32. What is this saying about marriage?
3 How does Christ love the church? List several adjectives. How should this affect the way we relate to each other?
4. Why can we have hope, even when there is a serious problem in our marriage?
5. Why is it that more people are living together today than ever before? What are the barriers to marriage?
6. Why do you believe we resist being known at the deepest level?
7. Why are we so often more aware of the faults in our mates than their endearing qualities?
8. How can people break the habit of fighting and quarreling?
9. How is our marriage a witness to an unbelieving world?
10. If you were to give a definition of love, what would it be?
